The one word that costs the average business owner his or her freedom…

January 16th, 2013 posted by David Finkel (Taxloopholes.com Advisor)

The word is – CONTROL!

Let me ask you a question, what sparked you to start your own company? If you’re like so many of our other clients, being in control of your own financial destiny, of running the show, was one big reason early on.

You were tired of other people telling you what you had to do, and how you had to do it.

You were tired of listening to other people tell you how to do your job, a job that you were likely much better at than they were!

So you took the leap and started your own company.

You thought that building your own company would not only lead to financial rewards, but more than that, you thought it would give you the control you so clearly wanted in your life.Only now you’ve found that while you have more control, that control has come at a steep price–your daily participation in your business with no real time away from the business, not to mention the stress and emotional toll of keeping your business running year after year.

Where is the freedom you once-upon-a-time dreamed about?

You feel tied to your business, like if you stepped away for even a short time – or heaven forbid– if you got hurt by the proverbial bus I mentioned at the start of this letter, and couldn’t work for a while, it would all come crashing down, like a house of cards, leaving you, your family, and your employees all vulnerable and exposed.

It isn’t the fault of the business, or even of you. You just built your business using a faulty model. You thought that successful business owners needed to be in control of very aspect of their business to make sure that nothing bad happened.

You thought that the harder you worked the more successful your company would be. After all, wasn’t that what you had learned? That it takes “hard work” to be successful?

But this is only half the equation. Of course it takes hard work, butitalsotakesSMARTwork!

In your business, the more you do, the more you’ve got to keep doing. Which for many business owners means you do the “job” of the business during the day, only to come home on nights and weekends to do the administrative and accounting functions that you just didn’t have time for during the day!

In fact, this phenomena is so common we even have a trademarked name for it –The Self-Employment Trap™.

It comes about because you are so busy doing the day-to-day job of your business, that you don’t have the time or energy left to grow and develop it as a business!

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”

Do you remember that scene in Godfather III when Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino) finds himself caught up in forces outside his control and pulled back into running the family business that he thought he’d escaped?

Do you ever feel that way? Like your business, your employees, your customers keep pulling you back in to the day-to-day operation of your business?

What does it cost you?

How many times have you called home to tell them you’ll be coming late for dinner? Or worse, you’re on “family time” but find yourself checking email and doing work on your smart phone or laptop? Or distracted from being fully present with your family because you’re going over and over work stuff in your head?

And how much money is left sitting on the table because you don’t have the energy or time to focus on going after it? What opportunities have you lost out on – forever – because you were so mired in the day-to-day operations of your business?

If this strikes a chord with you and feels uncomfortably familiar then you realize you’ve built a self-employed job for yourself, not a true business.

So What’s the Way Out?

“Okay David, you’ve got my full attention. I see exactly what you’re saying. So what’s my way out?”

The answer is simple, yet the implementation of that answer is both one of the biggest challengesand richest opportunities you’ll ever have as a business owner.

You’vegottobuildabusiness, notajob.

Building a business means that you build the systems, the team, and the intelligent business controls that allow you to daily lesson your business’s dependence on you the owner.

And in this process it is much less about long hours than it is about knowing the specific leverage points and sequencing of what to focus on and when so that step–by–stepyougrowanddevelopyourbusinessasabusiness!

And you know what the best part is? Done correctly, building a business and not a job means your business does more and requires you to do less. And this means you finally get your life back!

I want you to protect yourself, your family, your employees, and your customers and vendors but reducing your business’s reliance on you.